Wildcats travel woes

"Nobody outside a critical mass of feral bogan cats fans was at all displeased by the fact that the latest iteration of preening overpaid superstars was given a good, hard turning over by someone (anyone) else when they were forced to play at least a few of their games outside the fortress of Fifo dickheads this seasons.

Like flies to a turd, cats fans are drawn week in, week out, to the opportunity to watch as a millionaires' wet dream completes a victory lap of a competition that continues to turn a blind eye to the relentless home cooking that makes a cats home schedule look like a Donna Hay Christmas special.

Western Australia's patron Saint of Crooked Bastards, George Colombaris, commented: "Just like the Perth Wildcats I love getting away with filthy shit, that's why I was planning to invite shaun redhage onto masterchef next season until the whole misunderstanding with the ATO came out. So you'll never have the chance to see me critique Shaun's mystery box challenge and have him fling himself to the floor like he's been hit by a car in response. Thank god he's not commentating anymore though, hey. Can you see my nips though this polo?"

Wildcats coach and professional whinger Trevor Gleeson responded that "it's bloody unfair that we're asked to play outside Perth at all, we're doing this bloody league a favour by hopping onto a plane 14 times a year, frankly if it were up to me we'd just stay at home and play with ourselves rather than bother with this away game bullshit".

Right click->View Page Source lets you view the text of the article on most australian paywalled news sites.

Forty-one hours, two flights, two sleeps. That’s barely any time to prepare for an elite sporting event, but it’s the challenge the Perth Wildcats faced and embraced last weekend. The Wildcats lost to Brisbane in Queensland on Friday night and then faced New Zealand in Invercargill less than 48 hours later. There was no time to waste when the Brisbane game ended at 6:30pm WST on Friday and the New Zealand game started at noon WST on Sunday. That’s why the Wildcats had Basketball WA’s Keegan Crawford and WA under 18s coach Andrew Cooper in Perth cutting vision of the Brisbane match during the game. Back at Nissan Arena, the players completed their warm down, had quick meeting with coach Trevor Gleeson and then the focus turned to preparing for New Zealand as Gleeson met with assistant coaches Jacob Chance and Luke Brennan. “We identified the key things we wanted to focus on,” Chance said. “It’s such a short turnaround time so we couldn’t control everything in that time. We got together and prioritised the two or three main things. “It goes for about 20 minutes so it’s pretty productive. It’s so important to prioritise because you can get lost in the mess a little bit.” The Wildcats have developed their double-header routine for several years and knew they faced a long night. Crawford and Cooper’s edited vision was waiting for them when they returned to the hotel and they spent four hours turning those clips into a coaching session before grabbing four hours of sleep. The option of sleeping for longer simply wasn’t realistic given everyone had to be up at 6am to catch an 8.30am flight from Brisbane to Christchurch. Players sleep, coaches work. That’s the deal. “Their priority is recovery,” Chance said of the players. “They eat and sleep. Sleep is the biggest thing.” Airports are often used for team meetings but the early flight and extra time required to check-in for an international flight meant that couldn’t happen. The players turned the plane into their own office and Clint Steindl has become a master at manoeuvring everyone into vacant seats to have group meetings. Multiple iPads were distributed on the plane to allow players to view the edits from the previous night. The Wildcats couldn’t fly directly to Invercargill, which meant a stopover in Christchurch but there wasn’t enough time to do anything meaningful there either, making time in the air vital. “The plane is super productive for us. It’s massive,” Chance said. “We rotate through positions. The shooting guards will be on one iPad and the centres on one iPad. We all move around and go through it.” The team landed in Invercargill at 6.30pm, grabbed their luggage and went straight to the hotel for an 8pm meeting to review the loss to the Bullets as team. That was followed by dinner and bed. The day disappeared in an instant and tomorrow would arrive just as fast. The club has to consider time zones when planning for different locations. Brisbane is two hours ahead of Perth and New Zealand is a further three hours ahead and it’s difficult to change body clocks dramatically in a short period. The Wildcats scheduled their game-day meeting started at 11.45 NZ time (6.45am WST) which was five hours before they would be on court. The meeting was short and sharp. They were shown vision of the Breakers and then spent 20 minutes walking through their scout. Preparations were completed at 12.30pm. Chance said the team was still working through the best game-day routine but it was clear that a walk-through was vital on Sunday. “It was a new team with new personnel who some guys hadn’t seen before,” Chance said. “Guys wanted to get on court and go through that.” The players were left to their own devices to prepare for a 3pm departure from the hotel to the game. Some slept, some went for a walk, some grabbed a bite to eat. The Wildcats did a superb job of adapting to the challenge. Despite all of the flights, the lack of time between games and having one less assistant coach than usual following the mid-season departure of Paul Woolpert, they beat the Breakers 84-79. “Trev has always said to stay ahead of the game,” Chance said. “You stay ahead of the game for when these things happen. When Paul left, it wasn’t panic stations because we were ahead of the game.

That's barely any time to prepare for an elite sporting event, but it’s the challenge the Perth Wildcats faced and embraced last weekend.

The Wildcats lost to Brisbane in Queensland on Friday night and then faced New Zealand in Invercargill less than 48 hours later.

There was no time to waste when the Brisbane game ended at 6:30pm WST on Friday and the New Zealand game started at noon WST on Sunday.

That’s why the Wildcats had Basketball WA’s Keegan Crawford and WA under 18s coach Andrew Cooper in Perth cutting vision of the Brisbane match during the game.

Back at Nissan Arena, the players completed their warm down, had quick meeting with coach Trevor Gleeson and then the focus turned to preparing for New Zealand as Gleeson met with assistant coaches Jacob Chance and Luke Brennan.

"We identified the key things we wanted to focus on," Chance said.

“It’s such a short turnaround time so we couldn’t control everything in that time. We got together and prioritised the two or three main things.

“It goes for about 20 minutes so it’s pretty productive. It’s so important to prioritise because you can get lost in the mess a little bit.”

The Wildcats have developed their double-header routine for several years and knew they faced a long night. Crawford and Cooper’s edited vision was waiting for them when they returned to the hotel and they spent four hours turning those clips into a coaching session before grabbing four hours of sleep.

The option of sleeping for longer simply wasn’t realistic given everyone had to be up at 6am to catch an 8.30am flight from Brisbane to Christchurch.

Players sleep, coaches work. That’s the deal.

“Their priority is recovery,” Chance said of the players. “They eat and sleep. Sleep is the biggest thing.”

Airports are often used for team meetings but the early flight and extra time required to check-in for an international flight meant that couldn’t happen.

The players turned the plane into their own office and Clint Steindl has become a master at manoeuvring everyone into vacant seats to have group meetings.

Multiple iPads were distributed on the plane to allow players to view the edits from the previous night.

The Wildcats couldn’t fly directly to Invercargill, which meant a stopover in Christchurch but there wasn’t enough time to do anything meaningful there either, making time in the air vital. “The plane is super productive for us.

It’s massive,” Chance said. “We rotate through positions. The shooting guards will be on one iPad and the centres on one iPad. We all move around and go through it.”

The team landed in Invercargill at 6.30pm, grabbed their luggage and went straight to the hotel for an 8pm meeting to review the loss to the Bullets as team.

That was followed by dinner and bed. The day disappeared in an instant and tomorrow would arrive just as fast. The club has to consider time zones when planning for different locations.

Brisbane is two hours ahead of Perth and New Zealand is a further three hours ahead and it’s difficult to change body clocks dramatically in a short period. The Wildcats scheduled their game-day meeting started at 11.45 NZ time (6.45am WST) which was five hours before they would be on court.

The meeting was short and sharp. They were shown vision of the Breakers and then spent 20 minutes walking through their scout.

Preparations were completed at 12.30pm. Chance said the team was still working through the best game-day routine but it was clear that a walk-through was vital on Sunday.

“It was a new team with new personnel who some guys hadn’t seen before,” Chance said.

“Guys wanted to get on court and go through that.” The players were left to their own devices to prepare for a 3pm departure from the hotel to the game.

Some slept, some went for a walk, some grabbed a bite to eat. The Wildcats did a superb job of adapting to the challenge.

Despite all of the flights, the lack of time between games and having one less assistant coach than usual following the mid-season departure of Paul Woolpert, they beat the Breakers 84-79.

“Trev has always said to stay ahead of the game,” Chance said. “You stay ahead of the game for when these things happen. When Paul left, it wasn’t panic stations because we were ahead of the game.